IRE Confab Aims To Sharpen Reporting Skills

Ways that TV station can go beyond everyday news stories and distinguish themselves with investigative and enterprise reporting will be a focus of next week’s Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in San Francisco.

“This is about how to raise the level of your game, day-in, day-out,” says IRE Executive Director Mark Horvit, adding that he expects more broadcasters than he has seen in his six years at IRE to be among 1,300-plus people expected to attend the conference, scheduled for June 26-29.

He says the conference is geared more for journalists who want to hone their skills than seasoned investigators.

“The vast majority of IRE members are not people on iTeams,” Horvit says. “They are journalists who want to learn the techniques that those investigative reporters use to apply them to whatever they do.”

Station groups including NBCU, Scripps, Gannett and Hearst are sending large contingents of reporters, news directors and producers to the event. In fact, NBC Owned Television Stations is co-hosting the event with NBC News and will be sending 70 reporters. (The Center for Investigative Reporting is the other co-host.)

Matt Goldberg, assistant news director of NBC O&O KNTV San Francisco and a conference co-chair, says the group is a big booster of the IRE conference because it is focused on teaching practical techniques and skills.

“It’s about taking away something tangible,” Goldberg says. “It’s really focused on strong journalism.”

This year, IRE has increased the number of broadcast-specific sessions to 15. Those will cover visual storytelling, interviewing techniques, going undercover on a budget and how to select stories.

One session will offer 60 story ideas to take back to the newsroom.

Attorneys will discuss legal issues specific to TV news.

Industry watchers such as Poynter’s Al Tompkins will also be available to critique TV news stories.

In addition, journalists from the breadth of television — broadcast network, cable news and local — will be participating in many of the 150 or so general interest sessions, Horvit says.

NBC News’ Richard Esposito and Matthew Cole will discuss tracking down newsmakers like Edward Snowden. ABC’s Brian Ross will moderate a discussion on getting officials to talk, and Scripps’ Lana Durban Scott will oversee a session on covering the cost of college. Tyler Dukes, a WRAL Raleigh, N.C., investigative reporter, will lead a session on filing and tracking FOIA requests and using documents in reporting.

Collaborative investigations, data-driven reporting, bringing stories to life with interactive tools and juggling investigative stories with other newsroom duties are among other topics on the agenda.

Lowell Bergman, a producer and correspondent for PBS’s Frontline, will be the event’s keynote speaker.  Bergman is also the director of the investigative reporting program for UC Berkeley’s graduate journalism program.

The Investigative News Network will offer programs and sessions specifically to address the needs of individuals working in nonprofit investigative newsrooms.

In addition, a representative from the federal FOIA Ombudsman’s office will offer one-to-one help navigating the FOIA request process.

For the fourth year in a row, Scripps will hold a daylong investigative reporting workshop exclusively for its employees, using the conference as an occasion to gather people from across the company.

VP of News Sean McLaughlin says the event offers the rare chance for staff to “really talk about content and innovation and impact from all levels of the game.”

“It’s one of the most important things we do,” he says. “Different properties have different goals, but the core value and mission is the same,” he says. “It’s a good reminder about why we’re here and what we’re trying to do.”

Horvit says the conference also takes into account the reality and challenges facing many broadcasters today, such as time and money constraints, and is geared toward helping journalisms do better work despite them.

“So what you need to do is raise the bar in everything you’re doing. What we stress is that it doesn’t have to add a ton of time,” he says. “Sometimes with the more tools you know are out there, the more techniques you know that are out there, you can do better work.”

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